How bad can a day be when it begins with a bracing cup of Detroit Journalist o’ the Year Ron French? I ask you.
Ron’s package on southeast Michigan’s foreclosure crisis drops today (and to be sure, if I squint I can make out another name on the byline — Mike Wilkinson). As usual, it bangs the hammer of justice on the anvil of truth, and always has another killer anecdote coming down the pike:
Derek Brown knew Detroit had a problem when a grocery clerk he knew quit his job to become a mortgage loan officer. “Everyone was selling mortgages. There were mortgage offices on every block,” said Brown, president of Quorum Commercial and past president of the Detroit Real Estate Brokers Association. “One day bagging groceries and the next day selling my mother a mortgage? What the hell is that?”
Yeah, what the hell is that? Well, I know what I’ll be doing for a big chunk of the morning. Unfortunately, for the rest of the day, I’ll be doing the deadline scramble, to keep my own house out of foreclosure. It’s all good — work = invoices = checks = happy Nance — but something has to take a back seat. So enjoy a few bloggage tidbits; I’m sure you folks will find something to amuse you:
I know someone who claimed to have weighed 14 pounds at birth. In case you’re wondering how big that is, here’s a handy picture. Of course, this mother of this baby had a C-section. The man I knew was born at home, in his parent’s tenement apartment in Chicago, because they couldn’t afford doctors and hospitals. Imagine squeezing that thing out your vagina without drugs and only a neighborhood midwife in attendance.
So that’s why the sink was draining so slowly: Torso found in east-side sewer. Just another day in the action-packed city.
A tech-support question for Appleheads: Some months back, I promised Alex I’d make him a custom “In-a-Gadda-da-Vida” ringtone for his phone. In the past I did this by biting a 30-second chunk of the track, saving it as a separate MP3, and e-mailing it away. (It is, in fact, how I got the opening guitar riff from “Voodoo Chile (Slight Return)” for my own pink Razr. Yes, I am insufferable.) However, the copy of the track I have from the iTunes Music Store doesn’t allow me to export it or change the file format at all. Can I assume this is part of Apple’s digital-rights management system? If so: weiners. I already spent 99 cents for the damn thing; why can’t I mess around with it a little? Also, please don’t tell anyone Alex likes Iron Butterfly, or they won’t let him in any of the gay bars anymore.
Dick Cheney successfully treated for irregular heartbeat. In related news, police report no progress on missing twin newborns at nearby hospital.
Why getting shot in the leg can be very, very dangerous: Because femoral arteries carry a lot of blood. RIP, Sean Taylor.
Finally, things found en route to other things — rap represented in charts and graphs:
James said on November 27, 2007 at 11:30 am
Nance:
Yes, that’s the DRM. The workaround? Burn a disk with the song (make something you might use… like a car CD…), then reimport the track as a fresh, DRM-less MP3. Then slice and dice as you’d like.
It’s a pain, but that’s what DRM is, and one of the reasons people hate it.
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brian stouder said on November 27, 2007 at 11:34 am
The Sean Taylor story is surely going to have legs (so to speak).
The details are simply too odd. His million dollar home was broken into before? He therefore had a machete under his bed? The burglars cut his phone lines?
hmmmmmmm
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LA mary said on November 27, 2007 at 11:55 am
When I heard about Dick Cheney getting a jump start I realized how much I miss The Daily Show.
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Eric Zorn said on November 27, 2007 at 3:32 pm
I recommend a bit of software called WireTap Pro for recording any and all sounds on your Mac into mp3 format that can then be manipulated with Mp3 trimmer. The investment pays off in DRM escape pretty quickly.
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Peter said on November 27, 2007 at 9:16 pm
Whoa, is that THE Eric Zorn? Nancy, you’ve arrived!
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basset said on November 27, 2007 at 10:07 pm
“boys brought to the yard by respective milkshakes?”
someone decode that for me.
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alex said on November 28, 2007 at 8:05 am
“My milkshakes bring all the boys to the yard” are lyrics to a female rap song, Basset, in which the lady brags on her own tits.
An Inna Gada Davida ring tone — I am so eager for one! The cell phone of the individual in an office near mine plays “When the Saints Come Marching In.” Really need something sinister to balance things out.
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nancy said on November 28, 2007 at 8:09 am
My milkshake brings all the boys to the yard,
and they’re like, ‘It’s better than yours.’
Damn right, it’s better than yours
I could teach you, but I’d have to charge.
And they say young songwriters today aren’t addressing the big themes.
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brian stouder said on November 28, 2007 at 9:42 am
And they say young songwriters today aren’t addressing the big themes.
Well, it doesn’t have the light touch of, say, Cole Porter – but what the hell; it’s sorta funny.
Gimme a milkshake!
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